Songs From The Heart
by AussieEllie
Summary: A series of song-based vignettes from various points of view exploring the wonderful world of Twilight. Mostly ExB with some Alice and Jacob thrown in for good measure. Now Playing: My Bella was dead, long live my Bella.
1. The Heart and The Wolf

**Title:** Songs From The Heart

**Summary:** A series of song-based vignettes from various points of view exploring the wonderful world of Twilight.

**Rating: **T

**Disclaimer: **Twilight and all related places and characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.

**A/N:** This series of mini-fics is based on a challenge I read in another fandom, whereby you set your ipod on shuffle and write stories based on the first ten songs that come up. I originally set out to do this for the other fandom I write for, but when every song immediately reminded me of Twilight, I couldn't resist. The rest of them will be posted up over the next few weeks and feedback would be much appreciated as this is my first time writing these characters.

* * *

_**The Heart and The Wolf**_

* * *

_One, two, princes kneel before you  
(__That's what I said, now)  
Princes, princes who adore you  
(Just go ahead, now)  
One has diamonds in his pockets  
(That sounds great, now)  
This one, said he wants to buy you lockets  
(Ain't in his head, now)_

_Two Princes – The Spin Doctors_

The cool breeze filtered in through the open window, gently ruffling the yellowed lace curtains before swirling around my slightly chilled skin. Even after having lived in Forks for over a year, I still was not entirely used to the lukewarm summer temperatures Charlie insisted on calling 'hot'. Pulling the light sweater more fully around my shoulders, I glanced out across the yard. Edward had promised he would come over as soon as he and Emmett returned from their weekend hunting trip and after having exhausted my newest stack of reading material (I had managed to briefly escape Alice during our last shopping trip in Port Angeles to raid the bookstore, much to her dismay since it had cut into the time she'd had to make me parade a never-ending stream of outfits before her) I had resorted to merely staring off into space.

Watching as the sun outside completed its final descent past the horizon, my eyes followed the errant shafts of light it threw across the wooden floor. As I shifted slightly on the bed, one such ray hit the diamond heart hanging from my wrist making it sparkle with the same intensity of Edward's skin. I lifted up my hand, gently spinning the heart around, causing rainbow-coloured light to flash along the walls in a random burst. In many ways, this charm was the perfect representation of my love, my soon-to-be husband. Hard yet insanely beautiful, clear in some ways yet full of mysteries in others, cold yet all heart and as my fondest wish, preserved unchanged for all eternity.

Twisting the bracelet on my wrist, I cradled the other charm hanging from its delicate chain with my hand. The intricately carved wooden wolf held a slight sense of warmth from the sun, much as my best friend's (and I still considered him that, no matter if our paths never crossed again) bronze skin was always heated. If the diamond was Edward, then this hand-crafted charm was purely Jacob. Earthy, simple yet with hidden depths and a slight roughness which merely added to its appeal.

Letting the charm dangle, I watched as both the heart and the wolf spun in the breeze, never touching, always diametrically opposite to one another, linked only by the silver chain. My two princes, my sun and my universe connected only by a single common emotion. I guess that made me the chain then, strong but delicate, holding a claim on the heart and the wolf that I could not relinquish even if I tried. I shook my head at the slight ridiculousness of comparing the two most important men in my life to pieces of jewellery, yet still couldn't help noticing that the spinning heart tugged more heavily on the chain than the wolf, just as Edward claimed more of my own heart and soul than Jacob could ever hope to, despite his best efforts.

The slamming of a car door broke through my melancholic thoughts, my eyes drawn to the driveway below where Charlie's cruiser now sat idle. Knowing that I would need to at least go acknowledge his presence to reduce the risk that he would interrupt Edward and I when my fiancee (and I was getting better at using that word in relation to my love) finally turned up, I stretched my slightly cramped legs and headed down the stairs, the weight of the bracelet an ever constant reminder of my two princes.


	2. The Oracle

**Title:** Songs From The Heart

**Summary:** A series of song-based vignettes from various points of view exploring the wonderful world of Twilight.

**Rating: **T

**Disclaimer: **Twilight and all related places and characters belong to Stephenie Meyer

**A/N:** Here's the second vignette for you all to read. This one is from Alice's POV and takes place during Page 437 of New Moon, while Bella is sleeping and Alice is concentrating on seeing the outcomes of Edward's suicide quest. I also just wanted to say a big thank-you to my friend Dee, who introduced me to the Twilight series only two weeks ago and got me just as hooked as she is!

* * *

_**The Oracle**_

* * *

_They gave you life  
And in return you gave them hell  
As cold as ice  
I hope we live to tell the tale_

_Shout – Tears For Fears_

Flashes of outcomes, decisions made, discarded then remade raced past my closed eyes. I knew that next to me Bella was sleeping uneasily in her seat, her hands clasped together in an unintential prayer, perhaps her unconsious mind willing my brother to somehow miraculously realize his folly but I could not rest. I could not turn from the images before me, could not leave the macabre show that had Edward as its tragic star. I had always cherished my gift for the sense of security it gave my family during times of confusion but for a brief moment I wanted nothing more than to be able to close my eyes and see darkness. To close my eyes and have peace.To close my eyes and not have to see the thousand futures spread out before me, every one ending with the tearing of flesh, the end of eternity.

The relief that had so momentarily swept through me at the Volturi's refusal to grant Edward's request had merely been the eye of the storm, a brief lull in the horror before my brother's determination to end his existence had unfurled a new range of horrific possibilities before my eyes. As another future flashed, I flinched internally. If I could have made a facial expression, I'm sure it would have reflected disbelief and an ever-increasing sense of desperation as I saw the lengths Edward was contemplating. I saw him, strong and unyielding, tear through the human population of Volterra like an avenging angel, blood splashing against the ancient cobblestones, bodies slumping, blank-eyes forevermore empty staring up at the blazing sun. I saw the Volturi guard exercising the only option available to them to protect our kind, strong hands grabbing hold of my brother's willing flesh, ripping him apart with an unnatural ease.

Pushing down the wracking sorrow that could have easily paralysed me if I had not been consciously repeating the mantra that the future, that _this_ future was not set in stone, I extended my senses, straining against the limits of my gift to see past the horrific image of Edward's final death. I had to know, I had to see the consequences if we failed, if Bella and I's desperate quest came too little, too late. I focused, pouring all my concentration into pursuing this outcome to its furthest conclusions. Images swirled and changed, futures coalesced and dissapated then finally, finally, I could see. Heartbreak and anger, sorrow and guilt, rage and love all melted together into one canvas of grief, a family torn apart at the foundations laid bare before me. I could see Emmett, irreverant Emmett, his large arms wrapped around his screaming wife, trying deperately to tell her it would be okay in the face of his own sorrow but I could see that the words were meaningless to Rosalie. Her guilt was all powerful, the knowledge that her hasty actions had caused her brother's death as certain as if she had rend him limb from limb drowning her, pulling at her mind til it snapped under the weight.

I saw Jasper, running alone through the woods as if the hounds of hell themeselves were snapping at his heels, the broken emotions of our family too much for him to bear, mixing and colliding with his guilt over his lack of control at Bella's birthday until he decided he would be better off alone…better off as hermit vampire (if I could've, a hysterical giggle would have escaped my lips at the thought)…better off living in self-imposed exile.

I saw Carlisle and Esme, huddled together in a darkened room, the weight of grief bowing their backs, mourning as any parents would their first-born son. Golden eyes now empty, the harmony they had found in our family forever torn asunder, the loss of Edward creating a gulf between them that they could never repair, never fix. At that moment, anger pure and true bubbled through my veins, rage unlike I had known before clouding the vision before me. At that moment I hated my brother, hated him for what his actions would do to the only family, the only home I had ever had. Carlisle had given him life where there would have been only death, Esme had given him love where there had been only existence and this is how he would repay them. Their actions had in an indirect way given him Bella and in return for the gift of his heart he would irrevocably break theirs.

Bella.

The name broke through my haze and I could see her future, a single image burned into my mind. A simple granite headstone carved with a name and dates, a single line at the bottom proclaiming that she rested for eternity with her angel, as she had always wanted. I did not have to focus on the date to know when it would be, to know that where Edward would lead, she would follow right behind.

The image gave me focus, gave me purpose. I pulled my mind back, back past the gravestone, back past my broken family, back past the tearing of flesh and the massacre of the innocent. The thousand futures spread out before me yet again, but I ignore them. I search, I search for something new and then like a shining beacon there it was. A new possibility, a new decision made, one that gave us something that had been looming over Bella and I like a spectre…time. Time to reach him, time to stop him, time to change the broken future I had seen.

With a snap, I let go of the future and return to the present, a faint sense of hope tingling through me. A new future was possible and now I could only pray that we would survive long enough to see it through.


	3. The Flame

**Title:** Songs From The Heart

**Summary:** A series of song-based vignettes from various points of view exploring the wonderful world of Twilight.

**Rating: **T

**Disclaimer: **Twilight and all related places and characters belong to Stephenie Meyer

**A/N:** Now it's time to get into the head (and heart) of everyone's favourite vampire! I just wanted to also say a big thank you to everyone who reviewed, especially Sue. I don't think I have ever gotten a more detailed or complimentary review in all the time I've been writing…so this one is for you!

* * *

_**The Flame**_

* * *

_She's a candle burning in my room  
Yeah I'm like the needle, needle and spoon  
Over the counter with a shotgun  
Pretty soon everybody got one  
And the fever when I'm beside her  
Desire, desire..._

_Desire – U2_

Passion. Desire. Love and Lust. For so very long these emotions were entirely foreign to me, the lascivious thoughts of others viewed with detachment as I could not understand the underlying drive beneath them, could not comprehend how an emotion was able to sweep away all reason and sanity. Loyalty I knew, the love between Carlisle and Esme, Jasper and Alice, Emmett and Rosalie I could observe but the sensation of want, of desiring someone above all others to the point of addiction was alien, unknown….till the day Bella Swan (now Cullen I reminded myself, now and forever Cullen) came stumbling into my life.

She was my addiction, a vice I could not conquer even if I had the inclination to try. This clumsy, stubborn, strange, courageous, beguiling, beautiful human had stirred my thirst to a height I had never believed possible then against all odds, against my nature had stirred my hunger, my passion, my love to even greater heights. To the point that the thought of spilling even one single drop of her precious blood became a concept so repugnant, so inconceivable that I could not fathom it for even a minute, a second. The thought of not being able to feel her lips against mine, her flesh against my skin, her body pressed so close against mine that you could not tell where one of us ended and the other began unbearable. I had not believed that anything in the world would be able to overpower the lust for blood so inherent in my kind, but my love for Bella was evidence to the contrary.

She was the candle, I was the moth. She was the drug, I was the user. A pull so powerful that my resistances to her wish to join me in my eternal damnation crumbled like the flimsiest paper. In fact, as the time drew closer, the joy at the thought of being with her for decades and centuries to come was rapidly outweighing my doubts. To lie with her like this, to touch her with abandon, had been uncovered as my most secret, fervent wish. A desire previously hidden behind restraint set free.

A murmur of sound against my shoulder drew my attention downwards, the reason for my inner monologue stirring slightly before settling her head with a whispered exhalation of my name. If there was one thing I would miss when Bella was…changed, it would be losing the pleasure of her somnambulant chatter. It was the one time I had an insight into her thoughts, voiced aloud uncensored, though random and chaotic they may be at times.

Shaking my head to clear the contemplation of the future from my mind, wanting only to live in the now, I bent my head to press a soft kiss to her hair before pulling back to gaze at her unhindered. The dying flames of the thousand candles strewn around our room cast a flickering glow upon her silky skin, the last remnants of the romantic wonderland created for our wedding night. The glow glinted off of the diamond on her finger, now joined by a plain band signifying our eternal union. I had once thought that the night Bella agreed to marry me was the best of my life, but it paled in comparison to this one, to the night Bella became mine and I became hers in every sense of the word.

In the afterglow, watching her slumber naked in my arms, my initial reluctance to try this level of intimacy seemed like a fool's misgivings. Though perhaps we had not been able to make love with the freedom most normal couples take for granted, my fears about hurting my fragile angel beyond the unavoidable pain that comes with a woman's first time had been proven unfounded. I could let my eyes linger on the curve of her hip, the smooth expanse of her stomach, the long column of her neck without fear of seeing dark bruises marring her delicate skin. And linger I did, my eyes taking in all of her form in reverence.

I have never been more grateful for my crystal clear remembrance of the past, the memory of my beautiful Bella moaning in ecstasy, the feel of her bare breasts pressed against my chest, the sensation of her body joined with mine burned forever in my mind. I now understood why so many men, those in my family included, could waste so much time with thoughts of lust about the women (and sometimes men) that they loved. Even if I imagined Bella like this in my mind a thousand times a day, it would not be enough.

A part of my mind felt a little ashamed about my preoccupation with only this one aspect of my love. Though considering that I had only created this memory mere hours ago, I figure I am allowed to briefly exalt in the clarity of ecstasy my wife (and oh, how wonderful it feels to be able to finally call her that though I do not believe that it is an adequate term to quantify what she means to me) has given me with the gift of her love.

Bella moved again, the increase in her heartbeat signifying her return from the land of nod moments before her eyes fluttered open revealing a sleepy contentment shadowed in their depths. Before she could speak, the gentle caresses of my hand upon her flesh caused that contentment to darken to a heady mix of love and lust I was sure was mirrored in my own eyes. As our bodies intertwined again in the most intimate of embraces, I was struck by one final thought before I lost myself in her…that even all of eternity was not going to be enough time to show my heart, my wife just how much I loved her.


	4. The Abyss

**Title:** Songs From The Heart

**Summary:** A series of song-based vignettes from various points of view exploring the wonderful world of Twilight.

**Rating: **T

**Disclaimer: **Twilight and all related places and characters belong to Stephenie Meyer

**A/N:** Ok, who else is jumping for joy at the confirmation that we will get to see Bella and Edward's wedding in Breaking Dawn huh? I am, I am! Anyway, I did set out to write a happy little vignette but I checked my song list and this one leapt out at me and my inner Bella demanded her pain be told and who was I to argue? This one is fairly angsty and perhaps slightly strange, but I hope you enjoy!

* * *

_**The Abyss**_

* * *

_The summer days are gone too soon  
You shoot the moon  
And miss completely  
And now you're left to face the gloom  
The empty room that once smelled sweetly  
Of all the flowers you plucked if only  
You knew the reason  
Why you had to each be lonely  
Was it just the season?_

_Shoot The Moon – Norah Jones_

He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me…not. My hand wavered as it gently plucked the last lone petal from the stem, letting it fall to join the thousand others on the damp ground beside me, a carpet of lost hopes and dreams. The few flowers which had provided the answer I so desperately sought regarded as anomalies, false promise, the rest serving as nature's confirmation of the aching truth I tried so hard hide. A thousand silky ballots, all cast in favour of love lost, love never had.

Closing my eyes against the damning evidence, I tilted my head back, face raised towards the sky in what? Prayer, supplication, defeat…desperation that something out there might hear the scream constantly bubbling in my throat, the silent expression of a pain unspoken. That there was something beyond this world who could fix me with a few well-chosen words, a wave of a wand. But I knew better, there was no magic cure, no easy fix. There was nothing out there but darkness.

Just as the thick canopy of green that suffocated every living thing in Forks blocked out the radiance of the moon, the stars, leaving only a never-ending abyss, the thick canopy of suffering suffocated me, the radiance of my heart and soul ever dimmed, leaving an icy blackness. An abyss so dark, so deep, the absence of all life, all love that it terrified me to the core. But it was also so attractive, so needed that it was all I could do to hold myself suspended on the edge, wanting to fall into its numbing depths but pulled back, stopped by the faint ties of family, of scatter-brained mothers and fish-loving fathers.

A bitter chuckle escaped my lips into the cool, night air…even mere thoughts on nature became analogies to my pain, my thoughts ever morbid, ever broken. And why shouldn't they be? I was broken, poor little Bella, all cracked and worn, bent with a sorrow beyond my years. I was the broken doll of childhood, remembered too much with fondness to be discarded but never fixed, always cracked with age and sorrow and a thousand experiences that could never be undone. Kept together by a mish-mash of glue and tape that barely held, barely made the difference between broken and eternally destroyed. Pining after the brand new toy, the shiny, sparkling, perfect toy who was fleetingly enamored by my strangeness but who could never have been held by such a plain ordinary thing, a broken-down doll with no bright wonder to speak of.

A freezing wind whipped past my prone form, breaking my thoughts, the heralded winter closing in. Wrapping my arms around myself in a mockery of a once-loved embrace, I breathed out frozen sorrow in the air. It's funny how perceptions change. A few months ago, if asked what my favourite season was I would have answered summer with no hesitation. The bright, warm months (for it only ever got warm in Forks, never hot) had been filled to the brim with kisses and laughter, summer storms and baseball, fast cars and caresses. Happiness overflowing till I thought my heart would burst with the sensation.

Now though, now if you asked I would answer winter. With its encroaching cold, its early darkness, its harsh reality mirroring my own, making it all the more welcome. The chill in the air only matched by the chill in my heart, a perfect excuse to wrap my arms so tight around my middle with no questions asked. No inquiries as to why I held on so tightly, no strange looks. I knew they wondered but never said and even if they did, how could I answer? How could I explain that arms held tight was the only thing keeping me together, the only thing stopping me from falling into the dark abyss, the comforting numbness. The only thing stopping me from flying apart at the seams, a thousand Bella atoms flying through the air bringing cold to everything they touched.

Another shiver, this time more pronounced as the nighttime chill demanded its price from me. A part of me knew I shouldn't be out here, knew that I should be tucked safe and warm in my bed, that Charlie would scold and worry and try once again to fix the wreckage of his daughter but I could not move. That room, once so loved, once the place where nightfall was hoped and wished for as it brought with it marble skin and topaz eyes had become like a cell, all four walls closing in till I couldn't breathe, couldn't think. A yawning emptiness where love had once been, now no longer filled with the echoes of happiness, only the shadows of sorrow. No sweet murmurs against my hair, no strong arms to hold back the nightmares, no gentle lips pressed against my neck. The sweet smell that lingered on the pillows, on my clothes, in the air itself fading every day, the last real remnant I had to prove that it had not been a dream, not been the deranged imaginings of lovelorn young girl, dissipating till nothing was left but a stale emptiness.

So out here I stay, amongst the darkness and the cold. Waiting, wishing, hoping for the moon to shine, the stars to sparkle, but knowing they never will. Settling in to wait for the time when the abyss will swallow me whole and all the he loves me not in the world would no longer matter.


	5. The Change

**Title:** Songs From The Heart

**Summary:** A series of song-based vignettes from various points of view exploring the wonderful world of Twilight.

**Rating: **T

**Disclaimer: **Twilight and all related places and characters belong to Stephenie Meyer

**A/N:** Another angsty one, though with a hopeful ending and once again from the point of view of our favourite vampire. This song was the one that inspired me to start writing these, as when it came on, I knew straight away how perfect it was to describe Edward's feelings…

* * *

_**The Change**_

* * *

_You'll never know the way your words have haunted me.  
I can't believe you'd ask these things of me._

_You don't know me.  
You belong to me,  
My snow white queen.  
There's nowhere to run, so let's just get it over.  
Soon I know you'll see,  
You're just like me.  
Don't scream anymore my love, 'cause all I want is you._

_Snow White Queen – Evanescence_

I have been haunted by sound my entire existence. The sound of the sick, the dying, coughing up their lungs, their souls, brought down by a silent, invisible enemy. The sound of the pleas, vicious men, murderous men, becoming meek, praying for forgiveness from the fallen angel. The sound of the multitudes, laughing, screaming, living, dying in my head, never distinct, never separate. The sound of the symphony, beautiful music, sweet music but always tinged with emptiness, tinged with the search for something, someone I did not even realize I was searching for. But in all those years, all those days of existence, never have I been haunted by sound as I was this night. By the sound of pain voiced unending, by the screams of the dying, the whimpers of the condemned. The sound of my sin, the sound of an angel falling, the sound of my Bella…_changing_.

I had believed myself prepared. I had believed I was ready, that I had accepted that this was my love's most fervent wish and to deny her would be to deny my heart. She had given me my desire, the plain band on her finger intertwining our hearts, our lives, our destinies till the earth burned and the stars fell out of the sky and in return I could grant her this, literal immortality, decades and centuries of nothing but her and I and love and hope. I tried so desperately to recapture what I had felt with her naked body curled into mine on our wedding night, the absolute surety that I now understood, now needed to keep her by my side for all eternity but the emotion was foreign. How can I feel that? How can I feel that when my wife screams by my side in agony, as she claws and thrashes at the monster in the dark, the venom in her veins.

Science had proven useless in the face of the supernatural, the morphine drip left to stand silent guard at the edge of the room, the numbing liquid unable to stop the fire from consuming her. My safety net, my assurance that she would not suffer as I had suffered brutally ripped away leaving only me. Leaving only the chill of my flesh able to soothe a fraction of her pain, my arms wrapped so tightly around her. Underneath my embrace I could feel her flesh hardening, her blood running clear. My Bella, her fragile skin to me usually as delicate as the wings of a butterfly becoming like stone, all traces of blush, of tears, of human reaction cleansed from her writhing form.

I could remember so clearly as she had lain on this bed three days before, her wide brown eyes looking up at me in fear. I could remember assuring her, promising her that it would be alright, that if she had changed her mind I would not be angry, would not hold her clinging to her human life against her. I remember how she had shaken her head firmly, tears pooling and dripping silently down her cheeks as she told me that her fear was not for herself, but for me. That she feared that watching her go through this would be pure agony, that the guilt for hurting her when I had promised to never do so again would be overwhelming. At that moment I had been able to do nothing but kiss her, kiss my beautiful perfect Bella who always thought of others before herself. She had been on the precipice of the most agonizing experience of her life and she had only been worried about me, me who was about to murder her, to kill her, to stop her beating heart and pull the last true breath from her lungs. Now I wished I could turn back time, wished I could kiss her warm, _human_ lips again and again to ask her forgiveness for what I had been about to do.

I had kissed her since, in between screams and curses, in the lulls of whimpers when her cries and pleas of my name became the worst form of torture. When I could do nothing but whisper empty platitudes into her ear, could do nothing but hold on and wait and hope that when she awoke with blood-red eyes and translucent skin that she'd forgive me…that she'd still love me.

She was quieter now, the screams dying as surely as her heart was. I could feel its sluggish rhythm beneath my palm, her lungs expanding shallowly to take in the last breaths of air. Soon she would fall silent beside me, becoming forever dead, forever like me. I tightened my grip around her, burying my head against her neck. Her thrashes has diminished, her arms and legs moving weakly as the strength of humanity seeped from her veins. I counted eternity by her heart beats, the time between each weak thump stretching out forever, till I could see our entire past, the story of our love, of the lion and the lamb playing behind my eyes. I saw that first day, her saccharine blood calling to me, singing to me like no other. I saw our first kiss, so tentative, so sweet. I saw nights of caresses and days of laughter. I saw danger and fear, two hearts broken by my folly, healed only by her courage.

In the last beat of her heart, I saw human moments and sleep talking, clumsiness and blushes, careful hugs and closed-mouthed kisses before her body fell still, the last remnants of her human existence passing into memory. My Bella was dead, long live my Bella.


End file.
